One Piece Season 2 Eps 1 to 4 reviews

 

Sophomore seasons of a successful tv show always face a dilemma. Do they try and simply reproduce the signatures of the first season or do they strike out in new directions? Luckily for One Piece, the map was already drawn. The debut season, two and a half years ago now, established the world, brought together the Straw Hat pirates and only by the last episode did they have the capabilities to try and realise Monkey D Luffy’s ambition of becoming king of the pirates by claiming the One Piece. So the second season was always going to be different. If none of this makes sense, then you probably do need to watch season one before delving into the follow up. In fact the One Piece story, as told in the comics, is so vast and on going perhaps we will never see this quest end.

This first half of the second season delves deeper into the lore of the story, introducing some bizarrely attired and strangely superpowered characters while seemingly playing with a bigger budget. A show not to be taken over seriously but never to be underestimated, One Piece is close to perfect.

 Spoilers in the following reviews...

The Beginning and the End (wr Matt Owen & Ian Stokes / dir Emma Sullivan

Season two has used what had became the traditional streaming practice of dropping all the episodes in one go even though several recent shows have released them in batches or even one per week. I wouldn’t say this is a show to binge watch though; there is so much going on, you need to absorb it and at over an hour’s length each watching two episodes per night is the equivalent of a film. 

After an excellent recap that manages to pull all the salient plot points from season one into a compact segment, we find ourselves in Loguetown, scene of the execution of Gold Roger and the start of the One Piece quest. Though a little slow to get going, the episode unfolds at a pace which shows how the main cast have really gelled while the characters banter and josh with each other. The town itself is an impressive set that I was convinced was a real location till I looked it up afterwards. It is based on a European town with corner shops, alleyways and interestingly curved buildings and as the crew look for food and, in Zoro’s case new swords, they encounter several dangerous characters.

It does become a bit of a meme in the end that these mysterious newcomers with hidden agendas keep popping up round every corner and of course we have no idea who they are, though I’m sure that will become apparent later on. About the only certainty is that few of them can probably be trusted notably Tashigi, a sharp series debut from Julia Rehwalk. There’s Captain Smoker who can turn into smoke, Miss All Sunday who can detach and duplicate her limbs while Alvida is back but can now repel assaults which simply miss her altogether . 

We’re on more familiar ground though when Buggy shows up leading to one of the show’s kinetic action sequences which finds inventive ways to lessen the impact of the crew’s abilities. The narrative links back to the first episode of season one especially  at the end when Luffy’s potential execution deliberately mirrors Roger's and causes differing reactions from the various antagonists. The fighting is well realised and the script successfully makes us believe Luffy is in real danger though you may smile at the means by which he eventually evades it.

There’s a really exciting momentum to the climax which pays off the more character based material early on. The episode as a whole does a good job in coalescing what is a large cast and multiple developments in an easy to follow manner and ends up as a rousing and welcome return for the show.

 Good Whale Hunting (wr Ashley Wigfield / dir Emma Sullivan)

All ongoing series have individual episodes less concerned with overall developments and more involved in a particular locale and this is one of those. In some ways it reverses the approach of episode one by having the most exciting parts early on before it slips into a more characterful mode later. To get to the Grand Line, the crew must negotiate the Reverse Mountain an ingeniously devised place which has a torrid river flowing up on side and then down the other. Here the special effects team pull out a corker managing to show the ferocity of the water, the comparatively small size and fragility of the ship and the momentum carrying it. The results are one of the show’s best effects accomplishments yet with the peril of the upward climb (during which the tiller breaks), followed by the exuberant descent and to top it off the ship is swallowed by a giant whale when it reaches the bottom!

I had wondered why Luffy spent much of the trip sitting atop the masthead and we soon find out that he was separated from the others washing up somehow (it’s a sheer cliff face) on an island populated only by an elderly lighthouse keeper. From herein we have a two pronged story of the crew trying to find a way to escape the belly of the whale while Luffy prises the full story of how the creature came to be here and why it keeps banging its head against the rocks. Clive Russell brings a delightful touch to the role of the lighthouse keeper, named Crocus, a character who is more ideintifiable than many who appear in the series. Also it makes a change for Inaki Godoy to get some extended dialogue scenes as a contrast to all that shooting he  is usually called on to do. The whale’s story isn’t the easiest to believe or put across but the episode does a great job in humanising it, through Luffy’s eyes leading to a touching resolution. Though should Luffy be painting graffiti on the poor thing?!

Inside the whale there is a well realised vast repository of other ships and general detritus. The tense scenario in which the crew have to deal with a couple of other people trapped here to keep control of their ship helps to continue the improved dialogue for the regulars, the biggest beneficiary being Jacob Romero whose Usopp is now a much more interesting character with more depth. Packed with bright ideas and carrying a more emotional weight than you might expect this is one of the best episodes so far.

 Whisky Business (wr Tom Hyndman / dir Joseph Kubota Wladyka)

Used to hostile welcomes, the crew’s arrival at the first place on the Grand Line, Cactus Island, and its town Whisky Peak comes with a different vibe though the initially suspicious looks as they wander into town, like so many a Western movie, is a clue things are not as they seem. If the look is from that genre then once we explore the town, matters become a little stranger, For a while the crew are wined and dined by a town with a sax playing Mayor wearing a towering wig, nuns interested in more liquid spirits, lots and lots of food (and cake) plus a ready audience eager for Usopp’s’ tall tales. Too good to be true, of course, but the truth unfurls well leading to one of the series’ showpiece fight sequences in which Zorro takes on one hundred villagers who are really lackeys for Baroque Works using he town to trap pirates.

Its an exhilarating stunt scene playing out across a generous bar set fill of ramps, walkways and interesting configuration. The editing here is slick yet never makes matters look over choreographed and across about ten minutes never lets up, probably the best staged multiple fight since that classic one in Cobra Kai. Unlike that example this wasn't filmed in real time yet still manages to convince us it was.  Mackenyu is one of those actors who prefers emotional detachment and the episode serves him well; the character of Zoro expresses himself with his three swords but there’s some subtler work here as he grapples with doubts over his abilities even having an imaginary Mihawk offering a critique.

The episode fully embraces the comic’s visual imagination ranging from the playfully obvious- yes, Cactus Island is dominated by giant cacti – to the more inventive; wait till you see what’s hidden in the Mayor’s wig! While the reveal of the true intent of the place isn’t a huge surprise there are other rug pulls to add to the narrative, notably the true identity  of Miss Wednesday with her shift from antagonist to princess in exile showing the abilities of Charithra Chandran (excellent in the Alex Rider series) who gives a wide ranging performance. As the Mayor who is in fact a double agent helping her ,Yonda Thomas is superb in a role that starts out as comedic before taking on a more dignified bravery once his ruse is rumbled.

The episode does become a bit crowded towards the end and it seems that Luffy plays less part in proceedings than he might considering how he dominated the first season. It highlights an issue that presumably does not trouble the comics in that this journey should both tire and change its participants and already there is a sense that while the others are altering in different ways, he remains the same whooping, brave, food obsessed cheerleader though I may be judging too soon. If One Piece sometimes seems like a series just for kids, episodes like this remind us how actually it manages to adroitly walk the lines between all genres. 

Big Trouble in Little Garden (wr Lindsay Gelfand and Allison Weintraub / dir Christophe Schrewe

Loving the episode title’s film homages this season. Part four raises more than one straw hat to film iconography not least when it has its own Jurassic Park moment while the century long combat between two friendly giants seems to channel several fantasy classics at once. Little Garden itself is a jungle covered island seemingly lost in time like those places characters used to find in old 70s adventure films while the island’s long standing and very tall inhabitants share some traits with the BFG! All of which when combined with the ongoing story of the crew’s journey through the Grand Line while also trying to get the Princess home and being pursued by Baroque Works agents could become crowded. Yet there is a great flow to this episode which adds an air of surprise and even wonder at key moments.

Usopp and Nami for example find themselves carted off to a cave by a warrior giant who wants to “have them for dinner” only it turns out to be for thier company rather than as part of the menu. Luffy and Vivi as she prefers to be called encounter a herd of Brachiosaurus, echoing the iconic Spielberg moment but then turning it into a One Piece moment as they end up riding around on the animals.

The episode plays to the strengths of each character really well developing traits we’ve seen much further like getting to the root of some of Usopp’s apparent cowardice and also showing more of the friendly rivalry between Zoro and Sanji, a neat parallel to the giant’s tale. In the villain’s corner matters are a little more tame after their demonstrations of power in previous episodes- the problem with spectacular powers is that there then has to be some method of weakening them. David Dastmalchian has fun though as the most oddly decorated villain yet, the wax wielding Mr 3. If you thought X Men had exhausted all potential superpowers then this franchise takes the biscuit. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if somewhere deep in the comics there’s a character who can produce biscuits out of thin air!

Though this is the shortest episode of the first half of the season it ends on a cliffhanger from which it is hard to see just how the crew can escape but knowing this show it will be something fiendishly clever and just a bit silly as well. I can’t wait!